I've long admired your thought-provoking writing on Iraq, climate change and energy. You didn't win all those Pulitzer Prizes for nothing.

And I continue to be amazed by how you single-handedly convinced us the world is flat with your 2005 book on globalization.

But -- and you knew this was coming -- a recent column in which you portrayed Michigan's automakers and its congressional delegation as a bunch of obstructionist knuckle-draggers was about as relevant as whitewall tires in the current debate over whether the domestic automakers are worth saving.

In your Nov. 11 column, headlined "How to Fix a Flat," you wrote the Detroit Three automakers are laggards when it comes to innovation.

Tom -- hello. Have you heard of the Chevrolet Volt, which could be the first plug-in hybrid to hit the market? That's if parent company General Motors Corp. survives until the Volt's planned introduction in 2010.

You blamed "visionless management" and "overly generous labor contracts" as the reasons Detroit's automakers could make money only by building gas-guzzling trucks and SUVs.

Granted, their cost structures historically have made it difficult for domestic automakers to build small cars profitably in the United States.

But under the latest United Auto Workers union contract, newly hired workers make half the $28 an hour their rapidly retiring elders earn. And the automakers have made meaningful cuts in health care costs and other benefits.

The Detroit automakers have admitted they took their eyes off the passenger-car market in the late 1990s to concentrate on selling SUVs and pickups.

But big SUVs were what consumers were demanding in an era of cheap gas and economic prosperity. And Japanese automakers joined the party.

You heaped scorn on Michigan's congressional delegation, and especially Democratic Rep. John Dingell, for heading off stricter fuel-economy requirements over the past 30 years.

Dingell can be an ornery cuss. But even his detractors in the environmental lobby praise his efforts to limit greenhouse-gas emissions by all industries and utility power plants.

Autos, after all, are responsible for only 30 percent of all carbon emissions.

Despite all your misgivings about Detroit, you did support federal aid for the automakers in your column.

But your suggestion that Apple Computer Chairman Steve Jobs replace Wagoner as GM's CEO was way out there.

You noted Jobs is an innovator whose company developed the wildly successful iPod and iPhone. It wouldn't take him long, you wrote, for Jobs to develop the GM iCar, whatever that is.

But Jobs also likes to make money. If he took over GM now with gas prices at $2 a gallon and falling, Jobs might develop the Mac truck.